Salty Rivers
by divergentfan4life
Summary: This is Will Herondale's POV of the infamous rooftop scene when he pushes Tessa away. It follows the dialogue in the book but the characters belong to Cassandra Clare, this is just my take. Please read and review!


**Hey guys! This is my 2nd fanfic ever so my apologies if this one isn't very good! I also wrote A Day in the Life of Will Herondale, which you might want to check out if you like this one! Please read and review lots! I need all the help I can get! If you have any deep questions, or any request for one shots of either the Infernal Devices or Divergent, another series I like, you can PM me... :) Thanks! Also I do not own any of these characters, although I am currently mentally dating Will Herondale! :P**

Will stood on the roof of the Institute, the bitter London wind ruffling through his sweat-streaked black hair, the chill easily penetrating through his gear, which was crusted with thick, congealed blood. _Tessa's blood_.

His heart constricted in his chest as he remembered cradling her seemingly lifeless form in his arms, the blood on her dress soaking through his shirt. He had thought her dead, and in his assumption had allowed her to see his feelings for her, his love, his desire.

She had seen him without the protection of the wall that he had relied on for concealment for all these years. And she had seen his love.

Will clenched his jaw and faced head-on into the wind, letting the cruel chill freeze the tears in his eyes before they fell on his cheeks. He stared up at the cloudy, starless sky, a desperate prayer unspoken on his lips. _God,_ he prayed, _God, I love her so much. So incredibly much. Please don't take her from me._

He sagged against the chimney, He knew it was futile.

He knew what he had to do.

In order to keep Tessa safe from his curse, he had to push her away as hard as he could, make her hate him forever. It was the only way. If he let her love him, he would be the catalyst of her death. He couldn't love her; he couldn't lose her.

He couldn't love anyone.

_You love Jem_, a little voice in his head whispered.

_But Jem doesn't count,_ he argued with himself. _Jem is dying already. He is beyond the stranglehold of my curse. _

Tessa was not.

He had to protect her. From himself, from his curse.

Will ground his teeth into the inside of his mouth, tasting blood. Already, he could hear his voice, cold and hard, and see the hurt, the pain, the hatred in those beautiful, otherworldly ethereal gray eyes. The words would come easily to him; by now he had perfected the art of pushing people away. He knew how to hurt, knew just where to press to extract the most anguish. But this was Tessa, his lovely, sweet, gentle Tess, who he wanted to protect more than anything in the world.

But on that solitary rooftop amid the sooty chimneys of London feeling a brisk wind cutting him to the core, Will Herondale was certain of two things. The first was that he had to keep Tessa safe, to protect her at all costs; the second was he knew the cost for Tessa's life would be his own heart.

It was a price he was ready to pay.

Will leaned into the iron fence that ringed the rooftop as he stared out at the sunset, feeling the rungs digging into the palms of his hands. A wry smile twisted at his lips as he remembered why the fence had been constructed; as a child of twelve he had attempted a suicide leap off of this very rooftop. He had almost followed through with his intentions, but Jem had followed him; Jem, his parabatai, his best friend, his greatest sin. He remembered that day with vivid detail; it was the day on which his sister Ella had died. Because of him. Jem didn' know - how could he? But his best friend had sensed the black despair in Will, and knew that Will would find solace on the lonely rooftop.

He had saved Will's life.

The next day, when Will returned to his skyline sanctuary, a fence lined the edge of the roof. A small parchment note penned in Jem's careful, looping script was fluttering in the breeze, impaled on one of the rungs. It read:

_Dear William,_

_I did not construct this fence as a hindrance to your free spirit, or because I do not trust your somewhat questionable judgment. I do not demand much from our friendship; I do not press you for the reasons for your actions, and I do not try to meddle in your affairs. I have but one simple request for you: do not throw your life away like yesterday's news. Your life _is_ worth living, William, whether you think so or not. There is a reason we are in this life, and it is not just our vocation as Shadowhunters. You are here for a reason, Will. We only get one chance to live this live on this Earth, and I pray that you won't waste yours._

_-Jem_

He had kept that note; it was tucked into his worn copy of _A Tale of Two Cities_. He hadn't forgotten Jem's words, but he still couldn't bring himself to believe them. Despite Jem's faith, he knew he was a burden to everyone around him, an a danger. He still didn't think his life was worth living, but now there was Tessa. He needed to be alive to see her, even if he couldn't love her.

Will shook his head in pent-up heartache as he stared out at the sleeping city. The London skyline at twilight had always had a beautiful, ethereal quality for him. In the fading rays of the setting sun, the sooty, overcast sky was bathed in delicate hues of magenta, violet and scarlet. Watching the sunsets helped Will forget the reality.

He hadn't spoken to Tessa since her recovery from her ordeal with Mortmain in the Sanctuary, although he knew she'd been trying to approach him. He had noticed, with a pang of pain, the way her eyes followed him hopefully around the Institute, the way she lit up when he stepped into a room. But he hadn't been able to look at her, let alone say her name. It hurt too much, knowing what he was going to do.

"Will." The voice was sweet, hopeful, excited, and heavy with an American accent. _Tess_.

His hands tightened on the bars of the fence, and leaned forward, wishing the fence would give way so he could fall to his death and end this moment, end this agony that was to be his undoing. He would rather die than hurt his Tess, but he knew he had no choice.

Her skirts rustled as she crossed the rooftop in measured, careful steps to stand beside him. The gentle scent of her lavender perfume rose from her skin, making his stomach turn. The smell was so familiar, so, so familiar, and he wanted nothing more than to draw her close and breathe her in, but he resisted, staring down at the streets of London.

Will felt her eyes searching his face, but he didn't look at her.

She shifted. "Will," she said again. "What are you doing?"

He continued to stare out at the city, seeing the sunset reflected in Tessa's gray-blue eyes out of his peripheral vision. The air was clotted with grime, but he could still the snaking, pulsing Thames winding its way below the towering dome of St. Paul's. He knew what the angels must feel when they stared down at Earth, and he wondered, as he always did, why such ethereal beings would ever come down to dwell among humans, let alone breed with them to create Shadowhunters.

"I remember now," he said, still not looking at her, "what I was trying to remember the other day. It was Blake. 'And I behold London, a Human awful wonder of God." Will stared at the dark, shifting shapes of mudlarks searching for valuables by the river's edge. "Milton thought Hell was a city, you know. I think he had it half-right. Perhaps London is just Hell's entrance, and we are the damned souls refusing to pass through, fearing we what we will find on the other side will be worse than the horror we already know."_  
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He didn't need to see her face; he sensed her bewilderment at his tirade.

"Will," she said, moving closer, her voice rising in confusion. "Will what is it, what's wrong?"

Will only gripped the railing tighter until his knuckles whitened. The added pressure on his hands made the innumerable cuts and scratches pulse with pain, but he hardly noticed it. His whole body ached; he was covered with bruises and scrapes and his lip swollen and split. He could have healed these minor injuries easily with an _izrate_, but he hadn't bothered. The pain took his mind off of her. Off of Tessa.

"I should have known," he said finally, changing the topic. "That it was a trick. That Mortmain was lying when he came her. Charlotte so often vaunts my skill at tactics, but a good tactician is not blindly trusting. I was a fool."

"Charlotte believes it's her fault. Henry believes it's his fault. I believe it's _my_ fault." Tessa's tone was comforting, soothing, but laced with impatience. "We can't all have the luxury of blaming ourselves, now, can we?"

"Your fault?" Will couldn't hide the genuine puzzlement from his voice, despite himself. "Because Mortmain is obsessed with you? That hardly seems-"

Tessa didn't let him continue. "For bringing Nathaniel here," she said. Will could hear the tightness in her voice that gave evidence to the tears she was holding back. "For urging you to trust him."

Will felt his resolve soften, just the slightest bit, in sympathy for the girl beside him, who sounded so, so alone. He knew what it felt to be lonely all too well. "You loved him," he said softly. "He was your brother."

"He still is," Tessa said, her voice faraway. "And I still love him. But I know what he is. I always did know what he was. I just didn't want to believe it. I suppose we all lie to ourselves sometimes."

At her words, Will felt as if someone had landed a crushing blow to his chest, knocking the wind out of him. His entire _life_ was a lie. He didn't just lie to himself sometimes; he lied to himself every day. "Yes," he said finally, his voice as tight as bowstring. "I suppose we do.

He felt the pure warmth radiating off of her as she stepped closer still. "I came up here because I have good news, Will," she said, her voice quickening in hesitant excitement. "Won't you let me tell you what it is?"

"Tell me," he said, his voice sounding hollow and dead to his own ears.

"Charlotte says I can stay here." Tessa sounded slightly breathless. "At the Institute." He felt her eyes on her face as she waited anxiously for his approval, his happiness.

_She knows that I love her_, Will realized with horror. _And she loves me._

He said nothing.

"She said there's no Law against it," Tessa continued, her voice dropping off in confusion. "So I won't need to leave."

Will smiled to himself at the idea of Charlotte forcibly expelling Tessa from the Institute. But he quickly stuffed his amusement deep inside of himself and forced his voice into bland disinterest. "Charlotte would never make you leave, Tessa. She cannot bear to abandon even a fly caught in a spider's web. She would not have abandoned you." He still couldn't look at her, but saw her sag a little.

"I thought..." Tessa, obviously disappointed at his lack of response, was at a loss. "That you would at least be a little pleased. I thought that we were becoming friends."

A wave of icy horror swept over him as he realized exactly what he could say right now to break her heart. It was perfect; she would hate him forever. He swallowed hard and tried not to scream, and clenched his hands into fists around the wrought-iron posts of the fence.

"As a friend," Tessa continued, her voice dropping slightly in pitch. "I have come to admire you, Will. To care for you."

She reached out a tentative hand, meaning to touch his skin, but stopping without warning, no doubt put off by the tension in his posture. She drew back, biting her lip. "I thought perhaps..."

He knew what she wanted him to do: to say that he loved her as more than a dear friend, more than life itself, and that he was overjoyed she was to stay at the Institute. He wanted to say those things; he wanted to see her face light up; he wanted to hear her say the same for him.

Will looked straight at her at last, seeing the hope in her eyes, the steady, gentle light in her face. He was startled by the love he saw there, the openness of her heart reflected in those clear, piercing gray-blue eyes. She loved him. And it scared him to death. Words, vile and hideous and foreign to his tongue, flew into his mouth, and he stared at her.

"Come here," he said.

Without hesitation but with trepidation, she stepped even closer to him, close enough that he needed only to take his hands from the railing to touch her hand. Instead, he reached out for her and cupped her delicate face in his hands, brushing stray dark curls from around her cheekbones. Her skin was warm underneath his fingers, which were chilled by the night air. He slid the pads of his thumbs over her cheekbones, feeling her smile, and feeling so, so guilty.

"Tess." The word left his lips as naturally as any exhale, and she looked up at him.

He saw the desire in her eyes: the desire to touch him, to pull him close, to kiss him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, he knew. _This is for her own good, _he thought as he bent to kiss her. _I can't let her love me. I cant; I can't; I can't. _

She leaned into his kiss, her hands tangling in his hair. Will pressed his body against hers, feeling her lips, soft and sweet, underneath his. He pulled her closer, knotting his fingers in the silky material of her dress. She angled her mouth against his, her hands rising to trace his jawline, her gentle fingers grating slightly on the shadow of stubble. She was warm underneath him, and he wanted more, more of her, more of this love.

But he couldn't have her. Not here, not ever.

Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, and he broke away, looking down at her, breathing heavily. Her face was very bright and alive in the dimness of the London twilight, and her eyes gleamed in the weak light streaming from the witchlight lamp resting on the ground.

"Perhaps," Will said, barely recognizing his own harsh voice, "we should discuss our arrangements, then."

She looked up at him, her eyes huge and confused. "Arrangements?" she whispered. Her voice caught in her throat and it felt as if he had been impaled with a pike.

"If you are going to be staying, he continued, "it would be to our advantage to be discreet. It might perhaps be better to use your room. Jem tends to come in and out of mine as if he lives in the place, and he might be puzzled to find the door locked. Your quarters, on the other hand-"

Tessa's face twisted in horrified confusion, as if she didn't want to believe what Will had just told her. "Use my room?" she echoed, her voice perplexed verging on wary. "Use it for what?"

The wry, cold smirk Will painted across his lips was only partially fake. She was naive, his Tess, but that only added to her beauty. He let his smirk grow, and gave her a condescending stare. "You cannot pretend you don't know... You are not entirely ignorant of the world, I think, Tessa. Not with that brother of yours." The words were poison to his ears, vile and repugnant. He desperately wanted to follow them with a genuine smile and a laugh, to tell him it was all a lie. But he bit the inside of his cheek instead until he tasted blood. There was a dull jolt of pain, but it felt better that the agony in his heart.

"Will." Tessa drew away from him as if stung, her eyes flashed with hurt, but she quickly tried to hide it. "I am not like my brother."

"You care for me." Will packed as much arrogance into the statement, his voice glacial and detached. "And you know that I admire you, the way all women know when a man admires them. Now you have come to tell me you will be here, available to me, for as long as I may wish it. I am offing you what I thought you wanted."

Her eyes hardened, her jaw setting in anger. "You cannot mean that."

"And you cannot have imagined I meant anything more," Will retorted, in as hard of a voice as he could muster. "There is no future for a Shadowhunter who dallies with warlocks. One might befriend them, employ them, but not..."

"Marry them?" Tessa's voice was cool, unyielding, furious, but he knew her well enough to hear the tears she was hiding from him.

"How forward," Will smirked at her, feeling his heart shattering into a million pieces inside his chest. He knew this would hurt him as much as it would hurt her; he was right about one thing: she would hate him forever. "What did you really expect, Tessa?"

"I did not expect you to insult me." Her voice as firm, but about as steady as a delicate china vase teetering on the edge of a counter, one push away from shattering.

"It cannot be the unwanted consequences of a dalliance that concern you," Will said, attempting to sound thoughtful. "Since warlocks are unable to have children-"

Tessa stepped backwards as if shot, her hands shooting to her throat. "What?" she whispered sounding shocked.

His mouth tensed; her heartbroken face was almost too much to bear. He felt as though someone were ripping off his extremities one by one, and it was all he could do to keep from pleading for them to stop, to make the pain stop. "You didn't know that? I thought someone would have told you."

"No." Tessa's voice was small and soft. "No one told me."

Will held his gaze steady, his hands clenched into fists by his sides, physically restraining himself from wrapping her in his arms. "If you are not interested in my offer..."

She looked up at him with flooded eyes. "Stop." Her voice was more forceful than he had ever heard. "Jem says you lie to make yourself look bad," she said, taking a deep breath to steady her wavering voice. "And perhaps that is true, or perhaps he simply wishes to believe that about you. But there is no reason for cruelty like this."

_Only if I'm saving your life, Tess! _He wanted to shout the words, to tell her it was necessary that she be protected from him. He felt his cold, uncaring facade slip in the presence of her pure, distilled hurt, her pain, her heartbreak. Quickly, he schooled his features back into his unsympathetic mask. "Then there is nothing more for me to say, is there?"

He caught a glimpse of her face as she whirled and stalked away from him, down the steps, back into the Institute. Her cheeks were splotched with two furious red spots, and her eyes were red-rimmed with tears she refused to release. Her small, pearly white teeth were sunk into her lip, and she didn't look back at him.

Once he heard the trapdoor slip shut behind her, his strength left him.

His knees buckled as he sank to the roof of the Institute.

Will leaned his head against the chimney and stared at the smog-shrouded sky. Tears stabbed at his eyes, but he didn't care. He let them stream down his face, down his bruised cheeks, stinging when they fell across his split lip. His shoulders shook with silent sobs, and he felt as if a giant had and crushed his insides. He was hollow, his heart as heavy as a storm cloud on the brink of bursting. Will let himself cry, letting the night wrap him in a cool embrace, letting the brisk wind dry his tears into salty rivers that streaked his face.

There was nothing but an emptiness inside of him, nothing but a cold, dark, empty void where his heart had been.

_I have lost everything_, Will thought, feeling the darkness swallow him whole. _Everything._

**So what do you guys think? Good? Bad? Extremely terrible? PLEASE tell me what you think! I love reviews and my other oneshot, A Day In The Life Of Will Herondale only has one review and it makes me sad! So any criticism/comments are very helpful! Thx! And also please let me know if there are any oneshots you are interested in me doing! I'm a Will Herondale girl (obviously) but I am up for pretty much anything if you have any ideas! **

**And thank you for reading! It makes me happy to know that people actually like my crap! -divergentfan4life**


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